Woolpack Landscape Photography Course

Jan and I are in the Lake District running another landscape Photography course. We are based at the Woolpack Inn in Boot in Eskdale.
Yesterday we were in Eskdale and at Devoke Water. The waterfalls were spectacular. Not too much rain and mostly short showers when it did rain.
Today was our coastal day between Ravenglass and St Bees Head. The only rain was while we were in the Ratty Arms in Ravenglass having lunch. Lots of sunshine and fluffy white clouds.
Tomorrow we spend the day in Wasdale.
We are spending the evenings at the Woolpack Inn where we are staying. The course has been redubbed the Woolpack Photo Course, some similarities with Clachaig Photo Course that we ran last week!

Clachaig Photo Course

Here are some photos from our recent landscape photography course based in the Glencoe area.

Everyone took some spectacular shots at the 15 of so locations. Weather could have been better but it was good enough for atmospheric black and white shots.

All taken on my mobile phone.

We seemed to spend a few lunch times and evenings at the Clachaig Inn so the course was rechristened as the Clachaig Photo Course!

Berwick upon Tweed in Winter

We came up to Berwick yesterday in the snow and ice. Took 6 hours instead of 4 because of difficulty getting out of Peak District (snow storms and sheet ice on roads), big detour and traffic jams.

We are here planning the landscape photography course that we are running here in April 2012. It will be 1 day around Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh castles, 1 day in Berwick, Eyemouth and St Abbs, and 1 day in the Cheviot or Lammermuir hills.

Good day today, cold and clear. Big waves on the coast at Eyemouth and St Abbs, good for pics. Light went early though, by 3.30pm it was the start of night photography! Main bridge in Berwick looks great with Christmas lights and It's a full mooooon.

Tomorrow we're in the hills, hopefully. They are snow covered so should be good if clear. Will return home via Newcastle for some night shots; I have had a few requests at recent shows for shots from here.

As luck would have it, we found a Wetherspoons pub in Berwick. Just finished dinner and on to 2nd pint. Ruddles bitter and this one, Goodwill Bitter, were both cloudy but tasted fine. Looks like they're rushing them through!

Off to take more night shots soon then back to Travelodge on the north side of Berwick. Jan dozing after large Merlot, will have to wake her carefully!

New Techical Advice on Web Site

I have written some new pages for my web site in the Technical Notes section. The first is on darkroom technique. If you have been on one of my darkroom printing workshops this will provide a few reminders to help you in your own darkroom. The notes are also written so that they can be of use by anyone trying to improve their darkroom skills.

I have also written pages on hill and mountain photography. This covers a lot of the advice covered on my landscape photography courses. It's always difficult to remember everything covered so I hope this is helpful. The advice is both for film and digital camera users and covers lots of the basics of exposure and composition.

As if that wasn't enough I have also added a page on equipment advice. This may help you in selecting a suitable camera, lenses and other equipment.

Hope you find these new pages of use. In the future I will add a page on using digital cameras that will cover the basic camera settings to use, and master if you can. Unfortunately, digital cameras have lots of features that are not needed for landscape photography and just confuse when first trying to get to grips with your new digital camera. They also have a lot of features that make life easy for you once learned so don't despair.
Dave Butcher